Over the past two decades, wide-area cellular networks have evolved substantially from primarily circuit mode voice to scheduled broadband packet data access over the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) air interface. This evolution has primarily focused on improving data throughput and latency for broadband applications, but suffers from several shortcomings (e.g. high scheduling overhead, limited coverage, low battery life, and so forth) for the type of short packet access that is envisioned for various types of wireless Machine Type Communications (MTCs), such as the Internet of Things (IoT), and various other types wireless communications.